My East Coast adventure felt very much like I was a fish out of water. No matter what I did, no matter how many questions I asked, I didn’t get it. So many little things perplexed me.
I was as out of place as I was in seventh grade when our family moved from California to Canada. I never figured out that town either. Instead, after floundering for few years, I left for college
I do get to return to California after trying my best to be an east coaster. This year, I think I’m a little closer though. I may not be blending exactly, but I’m finding appreciation and I’m finding things to love.
How did I do it?
Well, I stopped trying to understand. Maybe living here was like learning to swim, I needed to just get in the water and knock off trying to understand why water was the way it is.
Things are done the way they are because that’s the way they’ve been done and it doesn’t matter if in other places it’s different. No sense losing sleep. No sense wasting time or space in my head wanting to change any of it.
What I could do was make myself comfortable. I could work around most of the personally difficult things and let the rest go.
I may have been forced by a broken ankle and some strongly vetoed decisions to let go, but the truth is, I needed the pushes. I needed to, at long last, accept. To find my own version of radical acceptance. To find my own work-arounds.
The first time I snorkled was in Hawaii. I was standing in knee deep water arguing with my son that I saw the fish clearly and did not need the snorkel or mask. He said :
Mom, just put your face in the water.
I insisted it wasn’t necessary.
He insisted I just do it. I insisted I not.
Finally, I gave in
Wow. WOW
I create my own resistence.
Even big parts of my own holding back, often my own suffering.
I cant go back and un resist. I’m not sure I’ll be able to not resist something else in my future.
But
I can enjoy this little moment of peace. I can even appreciate my broken ankle and all the surrounding events that led me here. Life is long
and a bit weird.
Out of the boot
Peace Kit 